“It’s been most interesting talking to you gentlemen, but if you’ll excuse us now, my friend and I have work to do. Please, run along,” Arabella said.
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘till the two of you spread your legs for us,” Carney said, as he began loosening his pants.
“Didn’t you hear what the lady said?” Cade made his presence known by stepping out from behind the wagon.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Carney asked, as he turned toward Cade.
“I believe I heard my wife tell you to run along,” Cade said.
"Your wife? Look Mister, we didn’t know she was your wife. Iffen we would ‘a know’d that, why we wouldn’t a’ come out here like we done.”
“But you did come, and if I hadn’t been here, you would have had your way with them. You’re both a couple of low-life sons of bitches, and if I see either of you around these ladies again, I’ll shoot you dead.”
“You ain’t got no right to talk to us like that,” Seth complained.
Cade cocked his pistol, the action making a loud sound in the night.
“Yes, I do.”
The two men exchanged anxious glances, as if trying to make up their minds whether or not to challenge the man who had confronted them. It took but a moment for them to decide, and turning away, they disappeared quickly into the darkness.
Maggie raised her eyebrows. “Maybe it is not good to be so close to a town.”
“Maybe those two just came to get something to eat,” Arabella said.
“I’m sure it was the smell that brought them,” Cade said as he holstered his pistol. “Whatever it is you’re cooking sure smells good.”
“I think he’s earned a taste, don’t you, Magnolia?”
“Oui,” Maggie replied with a smile, and from one of the tarts that was completed, she cut a slice and handed it to him.
“Damn!” Cade said after he took his first bite. “And to think that I was the one who tried to talk you ladies out of coming on this drive.”
Cade left the two women and the chuck wagon before dawn the next morning, passing through Fort Worth in the early morning darkness. As he rode through the deserted street, he could smell the coffee and bacon of the early risers, and he was looking forward to getting the herd across the Trinity so he could have breakfast.
When he reached the prairie where the herd had spent the night, he was pleased to see all the drovers were up and moving.
“Are they ready for us?” Jeter asked.
“Yes, let’s get them through so we can have breakfast,” Cade replied.
“All right, boys, let’s move ‘em out!” Jeter called.
With whistles and shouts and with Goliath leading them on, the herd began moving. As the sheriff had promised, his deputy was at the river to guide them to the best place to cross.
Cade had intended to skirt the town to the east, but the spot the deputy chose for the fording was right in line with the main street of town. At first Cade started to tell Boo to turn the herd, but Fort Worth only had three or four businesses, a hotel, a blacksmith shop, and about twenty houses, so he decided it would cause less commotion to just continue as they were going. Then, when about a third of the cattle were committed, a woman came out of one the houses.
“Here!” she shouted. “Don’t you let them cows break down my fence and trample my roses. Shoo! Shoo now!” she shouted, and she augmented her shout by waving her apron.
“No, ma’am, don’t do that!” Cade shouted, but it was too late. The unexpected shouts of the woman and the waving of her apron was all that was needed to start the cattle running.
“Boo! Clear the street crossings, give the cattle room!” Cade shouted to the point man, and Rollins galloped ahead.
Cade rode up along one side of the herd while Jeter was on the other side.
“Get back, get back!” they shouted as the residents were awakened by the thunder of hooves.
The wild-eyed Longhorns began running pell-mell through the town weaving in and around the scattered houses. Cade saw the woman who had started the whole fiasco, standing on her porch, her apron in her hand. Her roses that were blooming profusely as they rambled along her fence were one of the only things in town that was left untouched.
It took a while for the herd to settle down, but by the time they reached the chuck wagon, they were under control. They let the cows graze as the first of the men began coming in for breakfast.
“Now that’s a way to get your blood boiling,” Art Finley said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“But did you see? Her roses weren’t touched,” Troy Hastings said as he took a bite of the tart Maggie had just given him.
“Hey, you reckon that woman uses that apron on her husband?” Mo Bender asked.
“Ha! I can just see her chasing him down the street,” Art Finley said, and the others laughed.
“What are you talking about?” Arabella asked.
“Well, I’ll tell you, ma’am. We’re talkin’ about a crazy woman that near’ ‘bout caused a big stampede,” Troy said, then GW explained what had happened.
“I’m glad they didn’t get away from us,” Troy said. “I would’ve hated to have missed this breakfast, ma’am.”
Maggie patted Troy on the cheek. “Thank you, Troy. Here, take an extra one.”
“What about me?” GW said.
“Sorry, it’s the last one,” Maggie said as she began disassembling the camp.
She and Arabella had become quite proficient in the operation, as they loaded up the wagon and started due north. Cade and the others prodded the herd loose from what the cattle had thought was their bedding ground. As the herd moved slowly away, the riders eased into position around it. Pointers and drag riders resumed the same place each day, but swing and flank men often rotated. The herd plodded along, as slowly as a casual walk, and the drovers had to contend with boredom, for there was nothing more tedious than to ride along, looking out over the long, long line of two thousand head of cattle.
At noon, Cade gave the signal to push the herd off the trail, and no other order was necessary. The men knew exactly what to do. Half the crew, left point man, right swing, left flanker, and right drag rider, headed for the chuck wagon where Arabella and Maggie had dinner waiting. Even Arabella had surrendered her insistence that it be called lunch.
“I tell you what, Miz McCall, ‘n Miss Maggie, I just don’t believe there’s ever been any other cowboys what’s et as good on a trail drive as we’ve done on this here ‘n,” Petey Malone said.
After the first dinner shift had eaten, they saddled fresh horses, then went back out to be with the herd. Jeter had taken his dinner with the first shift, and now he rode up to Cade.
“You’re a welcome sight,” Cade said. “I was beginning to get hungry.”
“Ha. As long as I’ve known you, Cade McCall, I’ve never known you not to be hungry.”
When Cade rode up to the wagon, he saw Maggie in a conversation with Esteban Garcia. The two were standing behind the hoodlum wagon, out of earshot from the others.
“What are they talking about, so intently?” Cade asked.
“Senor Garcia is giving Magnolia directions on how to make tortillas.” Arabella said. “Have you ever had them?”
“Sure, everybody who’s ever been on a trail drive has had them, and when you spice up the frijoles . . .”
“But Cade, do you like them? Because if you don’t, we won’t fix them. Tu es le patron.”
Cade laughed. “That’s one French phrase I’ve learned, but even if I am the boss, it’s good to fix something special for Tangora and Garcia. They’re good men.”
“Vous êtes un homme bon, Cade McCall. I knew you would say that.”
Cade smiled. “I don’t know what you said that time. . . but it sounded nice.”
“She said you are a good man,” Maggie said. “And she’s right.”
Seventy miles north of Ft. Worth, the Circle JMT herd had just crossed the Red Ri
ver into Indian Territory.
“Peterson, you dumb sonofabitch!” Kilgore shouted at the youngest of the drovers. “What the hell was you tryin’ to do back there, drown me?”
“You know I wasn’t tryin’ to drown you,” Peterson answered.
“Then what the hell was you in my way, for?”
“I was ridin’ where Mr. Frazier told me to ride.”
“Yeah? Well when you’re around me, you’ll go where I tell you to go.”
“You ain’t my boss,” Peterson said defiantly.
“I may not be your boss, but if you don’t want your ass whupped, you’ll damn sure do what I tell you to do.”
Peterson glared at Kilgore, but he didn’t respond. Instead he rode on, putting some distance between the two of them.
At supper that evening Frazier called Kilgore over to talk to him.
“I ain’t goin’ to yell at you, ‘cause I don’t believe in yellin’ at any of my men, especially in front of the others,” Frazier said. “But I want to know what you were getting onto young Peterson about.”
“What the hell? Did that little bastard come complainin’ to you?” Kilgore asked.
“He had a few words to say, yes,” Frazier answered. “Now, I want to hear your side of it.”
“I ain’t got no side,” Kilgore replied. “But I got a question for you. How come you, a trail boss, would get involved in ever’ thing your drovers might say to one another. Don’t we have no right to some privacy? Trail bosses is supposed to just see to it that the herd keeps on a’ movin’, you ain’t supposed to get involved in ever’ little thing that gets said. Leastwise, that ain’t nothin’ I ever done when I was trail boss.”
“Yes, well, here’s the truth of it, Kilgore. You ain’t the trail boss of the Circle JMT herd, I am. Now, is it true that you threatened him?”
“The little bastard got in my way when we was comin’ acrost the river, ‘n almost crowded me offen my horse. I could’a drownded. But it depends on what you mean by threatenin’ ‘im. I didn’t say I was goin’ to shoot him, or nothin’ like that. I just told ‘im that if he done anythin’ like that again, I’d whup his ass.”
“I’ll not have you takin’ out on any of my men. Most especially young Peterson. For one thing, he’s only fifteen years old. What sort of man are you, that you’d threaten a fifteen year old boy. And for another thing, Cal Peterson is Mr. Truax’s nephew, and Truax is raisin’ him, seein’ as how his sister, the boy’s mother, died a while back.”
“All right, all right,” Kilgore said. “I won’t say nothin’ more to the boy.”
“See that you don’t,” Frazier ordered.
17
The combined herd, under McCall and Willis, was three days north of Fort Worth and the day had been hot and oppressive, without the slightest breeze. Not until they made camp that night did the sky become overcast.
“I don’t like days like this,” Cade said.
“You mean because it’s so hot?” Arabella asked.
“It’s more than that,” Cade said. “Look.”
Cade pointed to the western horizon where, in the fading light of day, flashes of sheet lightning lit up the clouds.
“Ahh, that’s nothing,” Jeter said. “That’s so far away that we can’t even hear the thunder.”
“Nevertheless, I don’t like it.” Cade stood up and, drinking his coffee, looked out over the herd, now still for the night. “The cows don’t like it either.”
“You want to take a ride around the herd?” Jeter asked.
“I think it might be a good idea,” Cade agreed. “Ian?”
“Aye?” the Scotsman answered.
“Have all the men keep their saddled horse right beside them tonight,” Cade said.
“Is it difficulties ye’d be expectin’ now?”
“I don’t know. But I’d feel better if everyone is aware that we may be in for trouble tonight.”
“Don’t ye be worryin’ none, for we’ll be ready for anythin’,” Ian replied.
Cade and Jeter rode together as they made a circle around the herd. Mo Bender and Esteban Garcia were riding nighthawk, circling the herd in opposite directions from each other so that they met twice on each revolution. Cade and Jeter overtook Garcia.
“How’s the herd, Esteban?” Cade asked.
“Right now they are quiet, Senor, but I think they are a bit nervioso. They did not like this day, so hot, and no air.”
“I can’t say that I blame them. I didn’t like it either,” Cade replied.
As they were riding more quickly than Garcia, they met Bender on the other side of the herd.
“What ya’ll doin’ out here tonight?” Bender asked. “I ain’t never known trail bosses to ride nighthawk.”
“We’re just taking a look around,” Cade said.
On the western horizon, the sheet lightning seemed to be coming closer, close enough now that they could hear the distant rumble of thunder.
“I tell you what,” Bender said, nodding toward the flashes that were now so frequent that they lit up the night. “That lightnin’ oer there’s got the cows kind ‘a jumpy. I sure hope that don’t come no closer.”
“I hope so too, but I have a strong feeling that it’s going to,” Cade said.
Although, normally, the night brought some respite from the heat, this night was different. If anything, it grew even warmer and more stifling. Now the lightning was close enough that it was no longer broad sheets, but individual bolts could be seen streaking down from the heavens, and the thunder grew louder.
The last rumble awakened Goliath, and he got up and looked around, raising his nose as if smelling the approaching storm.
“Sing to them,” Cade said.
Jeter chuckled. “You ain’t never heard me sing, or you wouldn’t say that. Lord, when I sing I sound like a heifer with a foot caught in a fence.”
“We’ll both sing,” Cade suggested.
“What’ll we sing?”
“I don’t know. How about one of the songs we used to sing around the campfires during the war.”
“Dixie?” Jeter suggested.
Cade laughed. “No, that song makes you want to get up and march. We need something soft and soothing.”
“There’s no way you can call my voice soft and soothing,” Jeter said.
“How about Lorena? That’s sort of soft song,” Cade suggested.
“All right, you start it, I’ll join in.”
Cade began:
The years creep slowly by, Lorena,
Jeter joined in:
The snow is on the grass again
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena
The frost gleams where the flowers have been.
Despite the effort of the two men to calm the herd, Goliath had no intention of lying back down. Then another steer got up, and like Goliath, he too began sniffing nervously, expectantly. Other steers rose as well, and soon the entire herd was on its feet, and though they began to shuffle around, uneasily, there was no movement beyond that.
The night grew even darker, the lightning flashes closer, and the very air heavy with potency. And then, in a scene that could illustrate Dante’s Inferno, on every tip of every horn of the steers, there appeared a ball of phosphorescent light.
“My God! Look at that!” Jeter said, awestruck by the sight. “Is that lightning?”
“No, I don’t think so. It looks like St. Elmo’s Fire,” Cade replied.
“St. Elmo’s Fire? What the hell is that?”
“I saw it when I was on the Fremad. Sometimes little balls of light, just like this, would form on the tops of the masts, or the tips of the spars. The old sailors said it’s pretty common, but I must say I’ve never seen it like this.”
The cattle, seeing the balls of light on the cows around them, became even more restless, and they began to move, not away from the bedding ground, but in a slow circle. Then, there was a sudden, huge spear of lightning, a great streak that came down so close to the her
d that coinciding with the flash, the clap of thunder was as loud as the report of a firing cannon.
Within an instant the stampede started.
At the moment, there were only the four men around the herd, and they were unable to control it. But there was no need to shout the warning; the thunder from the storm was matched by the roar of over eight thousand hooves pounding across the ground. Those cowboys who had been sleeping beside saddled horses were up instantly, and they joined in pursuit of the stampeding herd.
Thunderbolts streaked down from the sky, one after another, until it was like man and beast were under an artillery barrage. The floodgates were opened, and the rain poured down in sheets, as strong as if they were standing under a waterfall. One moment the night would be so dark that Cade couldn’t see beyond the head of his horse, and in the next instant a lightning flash would light the prairie in an unearthly glow of blue and yellow that would disclose the distant horizon. The flashing effect--now pitch blackness, then brilliant light--had a disorienting effect on the cowboys and the cattle.
The pursuing cowboys were trying to get ahead of the cattle who, at full gallop, could match the speed of the swiftest horse. But it was difficult to do so in the dark, because there was always the chance that the horse would step into an unseen hole, and throw its rider.
Cade felt a sense of loss and despair. He had brought the herd this far, was he to lose it now?
Then something totally unexpected happened. One of the cows let out a long, anxious bawl, calling for her calf, and it had the effect of bringing the galloping herd to a complete halt.
“What the hell just happened?” Jeter asked.
“I’m not sure,” Cade said. Both he and Jeter had brought their horses to a halt and they sat in their saddles, looking out over the, now still herd.
“Cade,” Ian said, riding up to the two men. “Should we try ‘n take ‘em back, or hold ‘em here?”
Although it was still raining, the lightning had stopped.
“Let’s stay here for the rest of the night,” Cade said.
The Western Adventures of Cade McCall Box Set Page 34
